Upgrade Recommendations

[NeutralAdrian]

Good Morning!

 

I just sold an old graphics card and am looking to update my gaming system a little. I have about $300 to throw down, I was thinking of just going with a 2tb M.2. 

 

I play a lot of newer games, Destiny 2, Total Warhammer (3), Shadow of War, and Baulder's Gate 3. But also use it for some 3d Design work using Fusion 360 and Map design for D&D. 

 

Any thoughts on what else to look into upgrading? I know I am a bit stuck for most everything else, since if i want to upgrade my CPU, which I think is my current bottleneck, i would need to upgrade my Motherboard, which would also mean the ram. I know all that together would be $800 or more. So I think better storage would be the way to go, and will at least help on load times for some things, till I can upgrade the rest of the system. 

 

Current System Specs

CPU: Intel Core i5 4690K @ 3.50GHz 

RAM: 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97-D3H-CF

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI 8GB

Storage: WD Blue, 1TB, 7200 RPM
               OCZ-TRION 100, 240GB

[StalePie42]

consider getting a boot ssd and another ssd for other stuff because using one ssd for many thing can lead to it getting slower overall a new ssd is definitly a good choice

[storm05]

i7 4790k isnt a bad choice aither 

[Jonathan Lee]

Yea you're pretty much at a system upgrade now if you want to upgrade your CPU. Grabbing a high quality NVME SSD with a dram cache would help overall experience of computer and load times, but wouldn't alleviate any performance issues you are currently feeling. Here are some options of good gen 3 drives you can go with:

Inland Platinum

Silicon Power A80

ADATA XPG GAMMIX S7

Mushkin Pilot-E

PNY CS2130

 

I would go with 12700K for a CPU upgrade if you want to do that. You would also need to upgrade to windows 11 to fully utilize it though. Here is an example of parts you can go with:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor  ($374.99 @ Newegg) 
CPU Cooler: Scythe FUMA 2 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($59.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($219.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Team T-FORCE DARK Za 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($109.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Inland Platinum 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $944.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-01-25 12:07 EST-0500

 

If that's feeling a little too much, you could also consider the going down to 12600k or even 12400f. Example build for 12400f:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($208.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Scythe FUMA 2 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler  ($59.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI MAG B660 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($189.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Team T-FORCE DARK Za 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($109.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Inland Platinum 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($179.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $748.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-01-25 12:08 EST-0500

[StalePie42]

you could even get something like a 10 gen i5 and a cheap motherboard and sill have 50$ left over for ram 

something i came up with very quickly:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Rsb3kX